


In Hawaii, water is thicker than blood

by agirlnamedfia



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Gen, Pre Season/Series 02, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-17
Updated: 2012-11-17
Packaged: 2017-11-18 21:09:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/565320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agirlnamedfia/pseuds/agirlnamedfia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The problem, or at least one of the many things that are completely fucked up about this entire situation, is that Steve didn’t <i>say anything</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Hawaii, water is thicker than blood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Renne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Renne/gifts).



> Late upload is late, written for [Renne](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Renne/pseuds/Renne) last year, because we have things and they are the best things. :)
> 
> Written before S1 even ended so....pretty much disregard anything and everything after 1.19.

The week Steve leaves, Danny gets Chin’s arm broken in two places and Kono shot before Thursday’s even rolled around. Afterwards he can’t even remember what it was he did wrong (misstep, not ducking fast enough, not paying any fucking attention, all of the above?), but he knows at least part of it was cause his head wasn’t in the game. Hasn't been in the game since this shitstorm of a week started.

They give him sympathetic looks, almost identical faces in their hospital beds, bleeding in together with the tidal wave of guilt that threatens to overwhelm him. Danny knows they don’t blame him. He’s actually pretty sure they’re experiencing the same things he is, feeling lost and a little bewildered. Kono even claims she ought to thank him for officially relieving her of her rookie status, now that she has her first ‘war wound’, but her voice is hoarse and her eyes flutter closed far more than they ought to.

Chin’s even worse, straining himself trying to thump Danny in the shoulder reassuringly. He grunts in pain and Danny glares him down (the whole scene is so Steve-like it makes something bleed out in his throat, a warmth he has to wrestle under control before it can get out of hand), but the comfort is there all the same.

It’s almost enough to make Danny think everything is going to be okay, only when he goes back to the office to tie up loose ends, there’s no frustrated cursing coming from Steve’s office, no pens being tossed around and papers flying all over the place. The office is empty, echoing in ways it never has before, it isn't supposed to.

It doesn’t help that the Governor is standing right by the tech-table, back ramrod-straight and an unreadable expression on her face.

“Governor Jameson,” he says carefully, “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

She looks at him for what feels like hours but is probably just a few seconds, and then sighs. “I’m closing down the Five-0 taskforce indefinitely, Detective Williams.”

And Danny thought that Kono stumbling to the floor, clutching bloody fingers to her shoulder, or Chin’s face when he’s literally thrown across the room and into a concrete pillar; he really thought that was the worst his week could get, is the thing. Turns out he was wrong.

 

The problem, or at least one of the many things that are completely fucked up about this entire situation, is that Steve didn’t _say anything_. The two of them, they’d been a team pretty much from the start. Maybe Steve started the Five-0 taskforce, but Danny got involved pretty damn fast and it took stronger (or perhaps dumber is a better word) men than them to keep Kono, and by extension Chin, from getting too attached. They’re a family, Danny’s pretty sure Kono on one occasion said, and it’s a lot more true than Danny ever thought it’d be.

And then one Monday morning, Danny pulls the Camaro up by Steve’s place and the kitchen window’s not open like it usually is, there’s no running shoes by the door, and even from outside, Danny can tell the house is empty. And not the I’ve-just-gone-out-to-track-down-a-couple-arms dealers/human traffickers/drug couriers kind that Danny has been forced to develop a sixth sense for.

The door’s open when he steps in, which has him reaching for his gun reflexively. There’s no signs of forced entry or any kind of struggle, and the kitchen still faintly smells like that instant crap Steve keeps around, pretending it’s actual coffee. Afterwards, the image is going to haunt Danny’s brain, Steve sipping a cup of shitty instant coffee, leaning over the table and trying to figure out what words he could write down that could explain what he was about to do. (None, is the answer to that question, and Danny’s pretty sure Steve knew that and that’s why there’s barely anything written down.)

Because there is a piece of paper on the table, and it does have Steve’s handwriting and it does, in fact, not say much besides _I’m sorry_ and _I had too_ further down, scribbled on like an afterthought. 

It doesn’t take Danny long too catch on, but his brain kind of blitzes out, completely and utterly convinced that he _wouldn’t_ , except, Danny finds out when he discovers Steve’s bedroom pretty much bare, apparently he would.

The room was sparse to start with, but Danny can tell the difference. Steve’s favourite boots are gone, along with some of his shirts and cargos, and the picture of Mary he kept on his nightstand is missing from its frame. He’ll later discover that the two pictures of Five-0, the one with the whole team and the one Kono snapped when he and Steve were roughing it up at Chin’s backyard barbecue a few months ago, are also missing, but it won’t make him feel better to know that Steve cares. It’ll just make him angrier.

 

They find out the whole story from the Governor of all people. When Danny finds the note, he's tempted to stay in the house and scream, scream his throat raw until Steve hears from wherever he's fucked off too and is aware of how much fucking trouble he is in; but he knows it's useless and if there's one thing Danny has (painstakingly) learned from his divorce, it's that useless anger helps no one.

So he gets back into the Camaro and finds his way to the office where Chin's just pulled his bike in the lot and Kono is already flipping through some files. She blinks when Danny comes in by himself, and he knows that when she opens her mouth, it's to ask where Steve is. But at that moment the Governor steps in the room, and he can see both Kono and Chin's thoughts transparent on their faces, twin flashes of 'oh shit' mixed with 'what the hell happened?' and 'this can't be good'.

“I'm afraid,” she says, “I have some bad news.”

Danny's quiet while she explains that Commander McGarrett re-enlisted, the recent situation in the Middle East has put the Navy in a very difficult position and they are recalling teams that had formerly been sent back home. Steve isn't technically a part of the Navy anymore, but he felt he owed it to his team and his country to go do his job. For however long it took.

The stress on the timeframe is subtle, but judging from the way Kono's head snaps up and Chin blinks when she says it, Danny knows they've all picked up on it. The truth of the matter is: Steve left, indefinitely, and he didn't have the guts to tell them himself.

Danny manages to keep his mouth shut, though it's a near thing when the Govenor stresses how dutiful Steve's being. He has to dig his nails into his palms deep enough to almost draw blood to stop himself from asking if it's her duty to do Steve's dirty work. But the mask cracks on several occasions and Danny remembers the ten mil she supplied for them without a word. He knows she was close to his father and probably also close to Steve, and it can't be easy for her to be doing this, so he keeps his mouth shut and nods when she talks about the future of Five-0. Which, from what Danny can gather isn't exactly hanging on by a thread, but isn't a sure thing either.

It basically boils down to “we'll see what happens when it's just the three of you, maybe enlist someone new”, and Danny knows he should be comforted by her faith in them, but all the while he can't help wondering if he even wants to do this without Steve.

 

It's not that Danny was in love with Steve or anything. Nothing like that. It just-- Well, it seems like now that Steve's gone, Danny finds himself missing a lot of things. Most of them things he never actually thought he'd miss. Like the crazy way Steve drives, or the impossible range of faces he can go through in a day, from Aneurysm to Zombie-like and the whole alphabet inbetween. He doesn't miss the bi-daily fearing-for-his-life situations Steve inevitably landed them in (most of the time, anyway), but as it turns out, Steve's loose approach to immunity and means is pretty handy when interrogating a suspect or trying to follow up on close-lipped leads. Danny's not a big fan of grenades, is the thing, and it turns out they were pretty effective.

He misses Five-0. He misses their daily semi-routine of coffee (the actual kind that Danny stopped for on his way over to Steve's) and banter, he misses going after suspects knowing Steve has his back. He misses the way Steve takes charge of a situation like he's going to unfuck everything about it, right this instant, and the situation better bend over and take it like a man or there will be Consequences. He just... He misses Steve.

He tries very hard not to think about what it means that sometimes he also misses the reassuring clutch of Steve's hand on his arm, or the way Steve smelled a little soapy when he slid into the car every morning. The way his eyes would crinkle when he laughed, an actual genuine laugh that Danny only seldomly got out of him, not the grim or sarcastic version Steve liked to dish out several times a day and made older and wiser people than Danny shit themselves.

Kono gets released about two weeks after everything goes to hell, and Danny and Chin go pick her up instead of her mother or siblings or anyone else in the extended Kalakaua family. They hang out in her backyard, trading stories, sharing food and carefully not mentioning Steve. It's weird, not seeing them every day anymore, and Danny is still often disoriented when he arrives at work and doesn't find Kono bitching the tech-table into submission. 

Instead, he laments the inbred stupidity that seems a requisite trait for all HPD officers, excepting present company of course, and Chin raises an eyebrow and says Danny's lucky to be a cop and at least he's not serving shaved ice to mainlanders or visitors. Kono's quiet for most of the afternoon, but she speaks up when there's a lull in the conversation.

“I heard he was deployed to Libya,” she murmurs, carefully looking at Danny.

He freezes, muscles clenching up, and drops his eyes to look at the beer in his hand, avoiding Chin's neutral face. Danny's well-aware of the mini-implosion he might have had when Steve changed the game for all of them without even a moment's notice, but he'd kind of been hoping it would be swept under the rug with all the other stupid things he's done since he arrived of this godforsaken island. Apparently he's not that lucky and Kono and Chin have decided that it needs to be Talked About, capital letters and all.

Well, that's not going to happen, not if Danny can help it. He doesn't need to or want to talk about Steve motherfucking McGarrett. Not now, not ever.

He yawns demonstratively and stretches out. “Hey, you look a little tired, Kono,” he says. “Maybe we should get going, so you can get to bed.”

“It's 3PM, brah,” she says, unimpressed. “I think I'm good.”

Chin's got that look of unending patience on his face and Danny knows he's screwed. He's probably been screwed ever since Chin called him up and said, hey, Kono's being released tomorrow, wanna come with when I go pick her up, brah? Fucking double teaming, traitorous cousins.

But he's Danny Williams and he doesn't give in without a fight. Deception probably isn't a good tactic with these two anyway, so he shrugs and gets up. “Well, either way, I think that's my cue to leave.” Straightforward and clear, that's more his style.

He's collected his things and is almost back in the house, almost clear of this whole situation, when Chin's voice rings out. “You gotta talk about him at some point, Danny.” Danny sighs. Should have known it wouldn't be this easy.

“Why? Why do people constantly want to talk to me about things? Why does everybody think talking about things fixes them? And why on earth would we need to talk about Steve motherfucking McGarrett, who by the way abandoned _all of us_?”

They're still looking at him and Danny hates it when they do that, this whole cousins/islanders/vulcan mindmeld thing where they share thoughts and feelings with nothing but their eyebrows and facial expressions and then turn on him, all passive and calm and it's-okay-Danny-all-we-want-to-do-is-help. He doesn't need help, damnit, he's _fine_ , and everybody needs to fucking stop harrassing him.

“Because it looks like you're still bothered,” Chin says and Danny snorts.

“Well, I'm not, okay? I'm not bothered. Why would I be bothered? I mean, someone I consider my friend, a very good friend in fact, even if he occasionally liked to push me into homicidal urges, up and left me, left all of us, and didn't even have the balls to say so to our face, couldn't even be bothered to say goodbye; why on earth would I be bothered about that?”

“Brah...” Kono says, raising an eyebrow. Danny shakes his head.

“No,” he says loudly, “I am done with this conversation and with this topic. Okay? Finished. And if you can't get that, if you two can't let this go, then, fuck, maybe I'm done with you too!”

He snags his tie off the table he'd dumped it on earlier and storms out through the house, their eyes burning into his back pretty much the whole time.

 

He doesn't get much sleep that night and when he calls Chin first thing in the morning (it's barely even light, but Danny couldn't wait any longer) to apologize, Chin's raspy voice is edged with relief and speaks volumes about his similar night.

“It's okay, brah,” he says, “I know you didn't-- We shouldn't have--” he pauses and Danny can almost see him shrug, “It's okay.”

“And Kono?”

Chin huffs out a laugh. “Is probably filling up your voicemail with shouted apologies as we speak.” There's a rustling of sheets and Chin yawns. “Listen, I'm gonna get some more shut-eye. Talk later, yeah?”

Danny makes a vague affirmative noise, and hangs up only to have a very distressed Kono on the line five seconds later, promising that no, he didn't mean it and yes, he's very aware that she would remove his private bits if he ever thought of leaving, and yes, he knows she's sorry for pushing and yes, he's accepting her (albeit grudging, because seriously, Danny, you need to get your head out of your ass) apology.

It's weird how the three of them are stuck together now, tied in a way that they hadn't been before. Danny sometimes thinks maybe they're overdoing it a little with the emotional distress, because Jesus, if he wants to act like a girl he'll go hang out with Rachel and Step-Stan, seriously; but then he thinks of Kono or Chin running off with no word like Steve did and something clenches inside him that only loosens when he sees their stupid grinning faces again. 

And it's not like Steve leaving was some kind of insurmountable tragedy that tied them together for the rest of their lives or something, they're all mature adults and they can handle things like this (“We can,” Kono says, gesturing between herself and Chin, “You I'm not so sure of, brah.”), but. 

They're a family, Kono said once. And family sticks together, right?


End file.
